


Blissful Nightmares

by Secretness



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Abuse, Angst, Blood Play, Childhood Memories, Dream Sequence, Heaven, Homophobia, Hurt/Comfort, Kind of Necrophilia, M/M, Nightmares, Protective Bobby Singer, Protective Sam Winchester, Sex Dreams, Sexual Fantasy, bobby in heaven, childhood flashback, protective big brother Dean Winchester
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-03
Updated: 2017-11-15
Packaged: 2018-08-19 05:59:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 6
Words: 15,965
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8192899
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Secretness/pseuds/Secretness
Summary: From good--really good--kissing to fucking Cas bloody, not even knowing if he was dead or not--Dreams of Castiel haunt Dean.  Cas can hear Dean screaming for him in his head, and he and Sam begin to think Dean is cracking, but there is actually a reason.  It's the kind of fear only a father could create.  (Progressive sex, progressive nightmares)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Castiel back from Purgatory, but God pulled him out (just to get rid of the Naomi plot), about midway through season 8. No established previous relationship.

The breath ghosting over his bottom lip was warm and heavy, and Dean was content to stand there and feel it, his forehead resting against Cas’ and the backs of his fingers brushed along Cas’ jaw. It was a sweet moment he could live in, but even as the thought crossed his mind, he leaned forward and ran his tongue along Cas’ top lip and pressed their mouths together. 

Cas didn’t touch him, but Dean wasn’t expecting it. He was sure Castiel would need instruction, and Dean couldn’t say he wasn’t looking forward to those lessons. The thought made him smile against Cas, but the angel didn’t seem to notice or care. 

How many years did it take to get to this point? So much time wasted. No moment was going to go by again without this. His tongue licked the roof of Castiel’s mouth in a long, slow movement. The more their lips and tongues and teeth worked over each other, Dean relaxed a little further, tension easing in the back of his neck and the base of his skull. He was no novice to pleasures of the body, but a kiss had never warmed him like this, never prickled up his spine and made his body curl--certainly not all at once. Only Cas did that apparently.

Cas’ mouth stopped moving, but he didn’t pull away. His lips were slightly parted, and Dean nibbled at the bottom one, trying to encourage the angel to continue. 

He didn’t.

Those comforting breaths were gone.

He opened his eyes and leaned away to look at the person he was kissing, but that person didn’t look back. Cas’ eyes were out of focus and staring, his mouth still partially open. 

“Cas?” asked Dean with a frown, “Hey, Cas?”

Tiny, orange lightning ran under Cas’ skin, traveling in shocks.

“No! Cas!” Dean yelled, grabbing his shoulders.

It didn’t cross his mind that an angel couldn’t be dying the way a demon would flare and die from their knife. 

Dean shook him, yelling his name. The orange electricity reached Cas’ eyes and lit his pupils in one last flash before his body began to fall. Dean scrambled to catch him, hook him under the arms, grab his coat, wrap his waist in a grip Dean knew would hurt a human.

But Cas kept falling, kept slipping, heavy one second and slippery the next. 

Dean screamed at him to get up, to move and help and come back. But Cas fell into black.

~

Dean’s eyes snapped open. His heart pounded alarmingly hard, his lungs struggling to keep up. He blinked rapidly. It took several seconds for him to adjust to his dark room in the bunker. With a deep breath, he reached up and scrubbed a hand over his face to rub at his eyes. The bruising pulse in his chest was slowing. 

Staring at the ceiling, there was no way he could go back to sleep. Resigned, he sat up and groped for his computer. 

No part of him would acknowledge the dream again. Once he was awake, it got shoved to the side until it was nothing more than a wispy, reluctant memory.

Castiel was careful in the hallway to not allow his feet to shadow in the crack at the bottom of Dean’s door. Dean having nightmares was nothing new. Sometimes he used to say Cas’ name in his sleep, and Cas would wake him up. Dean told him then in the dark how he kept losing everyone he ever knew in the maze of Purgatory, or how he was vividly back in Hell. But these new nightmares were different.

The first time Dean’s mind had screamed for him, Cas’ feathers flew in his haste to go to him. Upon arrival, Dean had yelled at Cas for hovering over him while he slept, and had not been interested in hearing anything else. Now, this unintentional cry was becoming frequent and more desperate. And Cas was growing less willing to leave the bunker. If the nightmares kept getting worse as he suspected they would, at some point Dean would want him around (he hoped), and Cas wasn’t going to go off on a hunt or a self-assigned holy mission to heal the sick and risk not being around when that came to pass. 

He was better here with Dean even if Dean didn’t want him to be.

~

“More vampires?” asked Dean skeptically as the three of them divvied out the pathetic contents of their fridge in the bunker kitchen, “Really? Isn’t that so… overdone?”

Sam frowned at him, walking over to the garbage to pick out the white, fuzzy strawberries and drop them in, “What? It’s vamps. What are you talking about?”

“It’s boring,” Dean whined, sniffing a carton of expired milk, “We’ve killed so many of them. Aren’t we to the point where we could send a postcard signed us, and they’ll scatter?”

Behind him, Cas and Sam exchanged looks across the kitchen. 

“Ah,” Sam started, closing his strawberry container, “They’ll still be out there somewhere--killing people.”

“Fine,” Dean said with a sigh, using his fingertips to put the carton on the fridge shelf and carefully slide it all the way to the back, “We’ll leave after we get breakfast. You coming this time, Cas?”

“If you would like,” Cas answered, leaning against the white-painted cinderblock wall.

Dean shrugged one shoulder, “Doesn’t matter.”

He scratched the back of his head and slunk into the hall. Sam quirked an eyebrow that followed him out.

~

Paying for two motel rooms seemed stupid to all of them, and Cas skulking around the brothers’ room while they slept wasn’t really appealing, so he decided to pop into the library after hours and catch up on some of the creatures Sam had asked him to research for the Men of Letters’ collection--but instead he sat in the backseat of the impala and waited. 

Dean’s nightmares were simple that night, and he woke up relatively okay. 

The exsanguinated victims not only worked at the same place but were all possibilities for a recently opened CEO position. 

All the glass and white walls and steam-pressed clothes put Dean, and even Sam after a while, in grave need of the skeeviest bar they could find and some cheap whiskey. 

It was a woman, they thought, who was killing the vics, but after an embarrassing encounter with her, for sure she was only human. Human and dealing with vamps to cut down every other possible person in line.

“Very original,” Dean told her sarcastically when she confessed, tied to a chair, “Money and power, sticking to the basics I guess.”

Under threat of an actual angel and display of his powers, she was cowed into confessing, and Sam walked her into the police station. But she didn't know where the nest was. So they headed back to the drawing board in their motel and eventually went to bed.

Dean’s morning shower however, felt amazing--hot and steamy and relaxing, every drop running rivers in the contours of his muscles, looping down his body. 

His hand drifted back to the hard body behind him. 

Cas was more solid than Dean thought he would be, marbled but still warm and soft to run fingertips over. Hands slid slickly through the water streaming down his hips and gripped him tightly. It didn’t take much coaxing to move him. Dean stepped back into Castiel’s chest and leaned his head back onto Cas’ shoulder. The hands on Dean’s hips smoothed over his lower abdomen, dangerously close to curly dark hair, and pressed him into the man behind him. 

Dean was a couple inches taller than Cas, but really that just meant it was easier for him to turn his head and kiss the neck beside him. That too was solid and warm. He usually preferred delicate and malleable skin, easily pinched between his teeth and sucked between his lips. But with Cas he could bite more, as hard as the reflex made him. 

Both of Castiel’s index fingers traced small, lingering circles in the V of Dean’s hips. Their movement sent jolts of illogical pleasure deep and low in him. His teeth clamped down on the side of Cas’ throat and he groaned. Dean ran a hand down Cas’ arm and laced his other fingers through that somehow still-messy hair and fisted it. His grip tightened and relaxed as particularly pleasurable pulses surprised and took him over and over.

With a content sigh, he opened his eyes partway to the ceiling. Red caught the edge of his gaze. He turned and frowned at the white tile even as more dark red drops flecked it. 

“What the hell,” he said in shock as realization hit him. 

He lunged forward to shut off the shower head spraying blood, but its flow only increased. In the wall, pipes gurgled like a person choking, and blood sputtered and gushed, thicker now, heavier. Too thick to drain.

His feet were covered in it, and the level was steadily rising at an impossible rate. The shower walls and curtain were painted, little drops and huge globs quickly filling in white tile and curtain, and sticking. He scrambled to get out and away from the warmth covering him.

“Cas, get o--Cas?”

The space behind him was empty. Dean spun on the spot, his legs sloshing in the knee deep blood.

“Cas! Where--Cas!”

His eyes focussed on the wall with the mounted shower head. Somehow, he didn’t know why, but somehow he knew Cas had disappeared through it. A punch didn’t break him through. Neither did the second one. He banged at the wall, but no matter how much he beat on it, how much he screamed, or how badly his hands ached from punching, he couldn’t get through.

The spray ran down his back, coating it. Blood bathed him from the hips down, and he had no idea why it wasn’t spilling out over the edge of the tub or how it was being contained by a shower curtain. 

“Say something, Cas!” he yelled through the wall, pummeling it further with no effect, “Answer me, God dammit! Cas!”

But his arms were getting heavier and the blood higher. 

“Cas! Please, Cas!”

He pulled back for the last good punch in him.

And found himself somewhere else. Instead of red, black surrounded him. He sat up, his breathing ragged, right hand balled into a tight fist. Cold against his back seemed to be the peeling wall of the motel. It was a few seconds more before the ghost pain in his hands dissipated and the wet warm over most of his skin to fade. Shapes started to form in the darkness. And then he noticed the hands clamped low on his forearms, holding him steady.

“Dean?” asked Castiel quietly, seating himself on the edge of the mattress. 

Swallowing his next breath, Dean closed his eyes and let his head fall back against the wall.

“Cas,” he breathed, willing his heart to slow faster.

“I’m here, Dean.”

“You can let go of me.”

Castiel gently released him and set his hands in his lap, unsure of what he was supposed to do. Dean swallowed again and began to wiggle himself back down into bed.

“Watching me sleep again? Fucking creepy,” Dean mumbled, pulling the blanket up over his shoulder and rolling away from Cas.

“You called for me,” Cas told him softly.

“No I didn’t.”

But he knew he did. If Cas said Dean had summoned him, he didn’t doubt the angel. It didn’t surprise him at all. But he couldn’t admit it. And he couldn’t fall back asleep.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Slightly more sappy than the last.

One slaughtered vampire nest later, Dean insisted on driving all night to get back to the bunker. Sam fussed for a bit but eventually commandeered the backseat for sleeping in awkward and uncomfortable positions, shunting Cas up to the passenger seat in front. He sat so perfectly serene in the car, watching everything that passed by with enraptured fascination.

Dean quirked an eyebrow and half a smile at him, and said softly to avoid disturbing Sam, “You’ve been on Earth for a few years now, and a year in Purgatory. Trees are still trees, and they all look the same.”

“No they don’t,” Cas told him without looking at him, “They’re all different, every single one--each self sustained, its own ecosystem for supporting life, including humans, though they don’t seem to particularly care.”

“That’s weird you know,” grumbled Dean, “No one notices that stuff.”

Cas did look at him then with a slight frown, and said, “They should. It’s their home.”

After another hour of attentive tree watching, Cas seemed to move on to star gazing. He leaned forward and closer to the window, his blue eyes tilted skyward.

“Stars too?” asked Dean, speaking for the first time since the trees, “What’s so special about them?”

“They change,” Cas told him, “The sky is completely different from when I was created. All new constellations and patterns, but they are almost exactly the same as the day humanity was created. My father pulled pieces of every star, every cloud in the universe to create Earth and all life on it, every living thing that would ever be on it. One day all those atoms will be dispersed and sent back out into the universe to help create new life in a different time.”

The car fell silent except for the engine drone and the occasional snort from the backseat. Dean’s eyes slid down to the empty space on the seat next to him and over further and slowly up. His vision flickered to the road and back over to Cas--but not quite. He could have been looking out the window or monitoring a suspected scratch on the interior. Cas was just in the path of sight.

Of course, Sam was asleep and Cas probably wouldn't know it was weird if Dean was looking at him, but Dean would, and that maybe mattered more. 

~

Dawn was still an hour away when Dean pulled them into the bunker’s garage. Sam had quite a bit of trouble weaseling his way out of the backseat half asleep. He and Dean grabbed their bags out of the trunk, and Cas followed them in. Without further ado or even getting under the covers, Sam collapsed on his bed, grateful for the room it gave him, and conked out. Dean went for food. 

Castiel began to dig through one of the various piles of uncatalogued artifacts collected in the bunker, knowing they were probably safer for him to have contact with instead of humans. A ways down the hall, he could hear Dean ruffling around in the kitchen, though they all were well aware it held nothing of nutritional value. 20 minutes later, he shuffled from the kitchen to the closest bathroom further down the hall. 

Cas’ hand paused, hovering over a glass case with a carved label that said ‘Spear of Destiny.’ Slowly he opened it, and ran his fingers along the stone point and broken wooden end. This shouldn't be sitting in a pile underground, unknown. He stood and set the case on one of the study tables and thoroughly examined it. 

He realized after a while that the Spear had distracted him, and he stilled to listen. The shower was still running. Securing the Spear in its case, he cautiously made his way out and down towards the bathroom. No other sound reached him but the water. 

With a carefully placed knock of one knuckle, Cas wrapped on the door, and called hesitantly, “Dean?”

Dean started and jerked his head back from the wall of the shower. He cleared his throat and rubbed the water out of his eyes. Like a dog, he shook his head and squeegied more drops from his hair. 

“Yeah,” he said, “Yeah.”

Cas waited, hearing the shower curtain move and then the fosset shutting off. It was a few more minutes before the door opened and Dean blinked blearily at him.

“Are you all right?” asked Cas, “The sun’s up now. You haven’t slept yet.”

“Yeah, I know, I know. I’m going now,” Dean grumbled and pushed passed him. 

There is a sweet spot of exhaustion when someone is so tired they can fall asleep standing up but before they get too tired and can’t sleep at all. After last night’s dream, he wasn’t sure which part scared him more, but he wasn’t going to have another one. His eyes kept closing of their own accord, and a small part of him was relieved to have reached that point where he knew he wouldn't dream. 

He didn't bother to shut his door--the hallway was dark anyway--but he did care enough to burrito himself with his bedding. As soon as he let his muscles relax, he was gone. Castiel stopped in the doorway and looked in on him. Perhaps in all this magical knowledge there was a spell or potion to rid someone of dreams. Perhaps he could create one himself.

Castiel leaned in, grasped the knob, and pulled the door closed. The bunker became silent. Staying with the Winchesters was still lonely at times.

~

“Can we get a cat?” asked Cas suddenly, looking up from his book.

Both brothers looked at him and then each other, and Sam said, “Um, no?”

“Why do you need a cat, Cas?” said Dean with a frown, “I think you've asked that before.”

“For when you are sleeping and the bunker is quiet for many hours each night,” answered Cas.

Sam shook his head, and argued, “We’re gone for long periods of time. No one would be here to take care of it--food, water, litter. It’s just not something we could do. Sorry, Cas.”

Defeated, Castiel returned to his book, as did Dean. He was grateful Sam squashed that idea so he didn’t have to be the one to put the sad, resigned look on Cas’ face. Despite looking, he found nothing obviously a case in the papers, not obviously enough to convince Sam to leave again so soon anyway. 

Seriously, they needed to hit the grocery store. Dean could sit at the table however long he wanted, and was still a little frustrated when food didn't magically appear in front of him. Cas padded his way in and over to the stove. Dean frowned and stood.

“Whatcha doing, Cas?” he asked, as he approached the angel. 

But he didn't stop for personal space, getting close enough for the backs of Cas’ shoulders to brush his chest, and curve of ass to barely make contact with his hips. Dean tilted his head forward and nosed at the back of Cas’ ear. 

So maybe the kitchen wasn’t the best place for this kind of thing, but that didn't stop Dean’s hands from reaching around to Cas’ front and gripping the fabrics of both trenchcoat and jacket and pulling them off his shoulders, the garments falling to the floor. He pressed up closer, and his hands smoothed over Cas’ chest and further to his stomach.

It took Dean by surprise when Cas turned his head and pressed perhaps the most innocent kiss Dean had ever felt against his lips. He smiled and kissed him back less innocently, his hands pulling at the bottom of Cas’ shirt, tugging it free from his pants. Dean immediately took advantage of the rare exposure and reached up under Cas’ shirt, skimming his hand along stomach and side and digging his fingers in, marveling in the solid flesh beneath them. His other hand trailed further down over Cas’ hip and leg and slid along the inside of his thigh and back up. He could feel the heat of Cas’ crotch along the side of his index finger. If anything it made his squeeze harder and pulled the other man closer. 

With a shuddered inhale, Cas pulled away, eyes still closed and leaned forward, placing his hands flat on the center of the stove and the counter beside it. It was a slight lean but that was enough to spin Dean’s mind out. He tilted forward and rested his forehead on the back of Cas’ shoulder, his hands digging further to somehow get a better grip to hold them together. He couldn’t stop the automatic grind of his hips into the ass against him. 

Cas hissed, but it didn’t sound like the good kind of hissing. Dean relaxed his fingers and pulled back half an inch.

“What is it, Cas?” Dean mumbled, nudging at him with his nose again. 

“Dean, please,” Cas whispered through gripped teeth.

But again, it wasn’t the good kind of begging. 

Dean stepped to the side to look at him, but before his eyes could make it to Cas’ face scrunched in pain, they honed in on his hand--splayed flat atop a red burner.

“Cas!” Dean scolded, yanking Cas’ arm back and away from the stove, but the irritation and worry coursing through him fizzled out when he saw the angry, red circles of blisters spiraling over the underside of Cas’ entire hand.

Dean’s own right hand stung in sympathy. It had taken months for his blisters to heal, and his father gave him no lenience when it came to stabbing with knives or firing guns. They always bled, so he took to wearing gloves all the time. It was easier to answer Sam’s questions about gloves than questions about what Dean did to make their father so angry. 

“It’s okay,” Dean told him, cradling Cas’ wrist, “You can heal it. Make it better.”

Cas was pulling away, but he couldn’t get very far. His other hand was pressed to the next burner, but this one stuck, skin bubbling and melting to ooze and sizzle along the hot metal. Dean scrambled to turn off the stove, but the burners were already off.

“Dean, please, don’t,” gasped Cas, crouching and shuffling his feet, unable to be still.

“It’s okay,” Dean said, putting his arm around Cas’ chest, but the angel yelled and groaned, curling away from him.

Panicking now, Dean ripped away Cas’ button up shirt. An arm-sized black bruise curled around his side, leaving a depression of broken ribs.

“Stop, Dean,” Cas groaned, trying not to breathe as he leaned against the few inches of protruding fridge behind him and slid to the floor, “Please, no.”

“I’m not doing this, Cas, I swear,” Dean told him, dropping to his knees in form of him, but Cas kept babbling, begging Dean to stop, the acrid smell of burnt flesh filling the kitchen.

“Cas, I promise,” Dean told him desperately, taking Cas’ face in his hands, “I’m not hurting you. I would never hurt you.”

Even as the words left him, blood seeped through his fingers. He tried to pull his hands back, but Cas screamed. The skin on his face pulled long as if rubber, stretching down over the corners of his eyes and distorting lips. Dean watched as Cas’ flesh gave way under him, tearing like soaked paper to reveal the striation of muscle and tooth root and bone. 

Dean threw himself backwards and scrambled away, his arms and grip sliding from the slick of Cas’ flesh stuck to his hands.

~

“Dean.”

The voice was Sam. The steady grip clapped on his shoulder that startled him out of his dream--was Cas. Dean blinked, Sam’s frowning face coming into focus on the other side of the table. A quick look at the hand on Dean’s shoulder showed no injury or impaired movement. Dean pinched the bridge of his nose and squeezed his eyes shut against the light of the kitchen. Through a crack in one eyelid, he spied the stove. Its burners were black instead of red, and they were clean--no melted flesh or burned blood.

“You okay, Dean?” asked Sam, pulling out a chair and sitting down. 

“Yeah, yeah, fine,” grumbled Dean.

He got up, scratching his head, and paced out of the room. Sam cocked his wrist at Cas with an incredulous look.

Cas sighed and told him, taking Dean’s seat, “Dean has been having nightmares, very intense nightmares. They’re getting worse.”

Sam leaned back in his chair, and said evenly, “Hell? Or Purgatory?” 

“Neither, I don't think. He tells me about those.”

Sam’s eyes narrowed on him, “He does? I didn't know that.”

“I think it was mostly because I would wake him up, and I was there in Purgatory, so he doesn’t need to explain anything to me. I’m probably not supposed to tell you.”

“So then what are they about? What do you mean intense?”

Cas shook his head and looked down at his hands, “I don’t know what they are, but… but he screams for me. In his head. It scares me every time. I think he’s avoiding sleeping now.” When Sam didn’t comment, Cas added, “I’m looking for a spell that will keep him from dreaming.”

With one actionable nod, Sam said, “Let’s find it.”


	3. Chapter 3

Sexual frustration was something Dean hadn’t experienced since before Sam went to college, trying to ditch his father and brother. It wasn’t easy and he always felt guilty about it later. This though, was so much worse. All the kissing and touching were wonderful, blissful even, but Jesus fucking Christ he needed more. Shoving the coat and jacket off Cas’ shoulders was getting annoying. He ripped away the white collared shirt like tissue paper, always catching on that completely unnecessary tie. And those pants! They took forever to come off, and he needed them gone. He just wanted the flesh underneath. 

Cas’ biceps were smaller than his, but they fit his body, perfectly proportioned and solid to dig his fingers into. It should have been a kiss, but Dean bit down on Cas’ bottom lip and realized it was a lot harder than he meant it to be, but Cas didn’t protest. He took Dean in a vice grip holding their hips together. How Castiel managed to have hip bones sexier than any woman Dean had ever known was beyond him. He turned to sucking Cas’ lip instead, still too hard to be an apology. 

A growl of annoyance rumbled in Dean’s throat. His hand worked open the belt, button, and zipper of Cas’ pants, made all the more difficult when one of Cas’ hands slid up the back of Dean’s head, gripped his hair tilting his head ever so slightly, and latched teeth on the pulse point of Dean’s neck. 

Dean tucked his thumbs under the waist bands of both dress pants and boxers and shoved them down as far as he could reach. Cas’ thighs were thicker than Dean had thought, and the pants needed more force before they gave in and sloughed to the ground.

“Out of them,” Dean mumbled, closing his eyes as the warmth of Cas’ mouth coated his neck, but then he said clearer with a little push, “Step out.”

He didn’t think about what had happened to Cas’ shoes and socks and wouldn’t care either way. They were gone. The pants were gone. Cas was buck ass naked, and Dean’s hands couldn’t cover enough skin. Scratches and red streaks pressed into flesh to mark the trail of fingers over it. They showed up more easily than Dean would have guessed, and when Dean’s fingers gripped Cas’ ass, holding him closer so Dean could press forward and tongue fucked his mouth--those fingers would probably leave bruises. 

Angels could lock lips forever, but Dean needed to breathe. Pulling back with a gasp seemed to be a weakness though, and Cas took a step forward, grip still guiding Dean’s head where he wanted it, and ran his hand over the bulky front of Dean’s pants.

Getting punched in the gut took less wind out of him than the pressure Castiel pushed onto his length. And for once Dean himself was the one wearing too many clothes. He smoothed his lips over the top of Cas’ shoulder not quite kissing it, panting hot breath that moistened the skin his lips slid through. He rolled his arms to slide out of the thick, unyielding fabric of his green cargo jacket. 

It tore down his back, and the two separate pieces yanked off his arms. Dean bit into Cas’ shoulder in frustration at the loss of contact, but he knew it was worth it. A good jerk split his dark red overshirt and left it to the ground. Calloused hands tucked under his T-shirt and ran up over his stomach and chest and scratched him. Cas gave a firm little shove to dislodge Dean from his shoulder and chose to slowly--god dammit--slowly pull it up over Dean’s head, reveling in trapping his arms above his head. Cas held them there with one hand and smoothed his other down Dean’s side to waist and hips. One finger trailed the V between under Dean’s pants, and he twisted, trying to get free, trying to move up unto Cas’ hand, but clearly neither of those things were allowed. 

The button on his jeans echoed as it hit the floor of their motel room--one he was sure he had been in earlier, only this time there was no Sam in the second bed. It was then that Dean made a conscious decision to not think about his brother when Cas was ripping open the front of his pants.

“Fuck, Cas,” Dean gasped as that hand slid down behind his briefs and grasped him without preamble.

Dean’s body jerked of its own accord and rocked into Cas’ hold. Finally his shirt was pulled away and tossed, and his arms were free. He didn’t look, pause, hesitate--it was an erection, and he was very familiar with his own. Cas’ couldn't be too different. Fingers curling around the silken skin, a small part of his brain noted the slightly different width, slightly different curve, but most of him couldn’t care less. Cas’ hand tightened around him, making him buck forward and squeeze harder. Cas gave a sharp inhale at his ear, and Dean couldn’t help the smirk. He drug his hand up Cas’ length and rubbed his thumb over the head.

Castiel’s grip adjusted on him and moved, pumping him slowly, almost experimentally at first and then harder, rougher. Dean sank his teeth into Cas’ neck and groaned, pulling them closer. His breath came and went with Cas’ hand. Convincing himself to let go of his mouthful, he raised his head and nudged at the side of Cas’ face. With one drag, Dean licked up the shell of Cas’ ear, panting into it and biting as the jerking over his demanding erection sped up. Nonsense spilled from his lips, and even he wasn’t sure what they were.

And then it stopped. The pressure released, Cas’ hands trailed lightly up his sides. Dean growled. He’d take what he wanted. With a hard grip, he grabbed Cas’ hips, turned, and slammed him into the wall.

A searing pain pierced his chest. Dean stepped back, practically slapped out of his haze of lust, and more pain shot through him. His hand rose to the puncture wound and looked down. A three bladed tip streaked in both their bloods protruded from the center of Cas’ chest. 

Dean whispered, his foot slowly sliding back, “Cas…”

Bright white shot out like a shock wave from the stab, blaring from the angel’s eye sockets and mouth. Dean stumbled back, throwing his arm up to protect his eyes.

It was over quickly, and the motel room was plunged into a darkness much denser than before. Dean peaked up around his arm and lowered it. Cas hung against the wall, his head flopped forward, stood and propped up by the angel blade.

No words, no breath left Dean’s body. He put his hands up as if to touch the body on the wall, shaking, shaking worse, but he stopped, he couldn’t. He didn't want to feel the cold of dead skin. Not Cas’. Never Cas.

A throat ripping rasp sucked into the corpse. It picked up its head gasping and pushing from the wall behind him. Everything about it was wrong. Dean’s feet slid back one foot and then another. No, this was….

Ragged grunting reached him as the body struggled forward off the blade and plummeted to its knees, catching itself, arms bending at unnatural angles under the weight. It slumped back against the wall, and their eyes connected.

“Dean,” it said. 

For a few seconds Dean stood stunted.

“...Jimmy?”

~

“Sam,” Cas hissed urgently, opening the bathroom door of their motel, “Sam!”

“Cas, what the hell?” Sam shot back, barely remembering to keep his voice quiet and pulled the shower curtain closer to the wall, “I’m showering. Get out!”

“Sam, listen,” said Cas, ignoring him, and entered the bathroom anyway, closing the door quietly behind him.

“No, I don--”

“Dean is going to have a nightmare, a bad one,” Cas plunged on, “They all start the same, like this, and the worse this is, the worse the nightmare is. You should wake him up.”

“Why can’t you?” Sam sighed, giving in to the conversation.

“He gets angry with me.”

“Fine,” grunted Sam, “Give me that towel.”

The shower quit, Sam’s hand reached over the curtain rod for the towel Castiel handed him, and it disappeared. Metal screeched as Sam pushed the curtain aside, towel wrapped securely around his waist.

“For the record,” he said, carefully skirting around Cas and opening the door, “Knock. Or wait for me to come out next time.”

Dean’s breath was punchy, obvious in the silent room. Frowning, Sam rounded on the bed. His brother’s back arched ever so slightly, one hand under the pillow beneath his head, and the other curled into the thin blanket that barely covered him. Sam stood and watched for a minute.

“Ah, Cas?” he said, eyebrows high on his forehead.

The angel looked up at him hovering around the foot of the bed. Reaching down, Sam carefully pinched as little of the blanket as he could and lifted it. He rolled his eyes up to Cas, who slowly worked his way around to look. Sam allowed him to see for half a second before dropping the blanket back down. 

“It’s not a nightmare, Cas,” he said, on his way back to the bathroom, “It’s a good dream.”

“No, this… this is how they start,” Cas insisted, still staring at Dean’s crotch, where he now knew a straining erection was barely concealed.

“Cas, I’m not waking him up if he’s going to sleep decently for once.”

“He won’t, Sam--”

“Cas! Stop. I’m going to finish showering and go to bed. You go… do something. Dean is fine, better at the moment. Leave him be. Good night, Cas.”

His tone was final, and he didn't wait for a reply, shutting the bathroom door behind him. Cas didn't know what to do. He was right, he knew it, but now both Dean and Sam would be angry if he woke Dean from his dreams. With a flutter, he disappeared but only went as far as the impala. He would be needed later.

~

“Jimmy?” 

Carefully, slowly, Dean eased closer, his hands up as if to say he meant no harm. He crouched to his knees beyond the other man’s feet.

“Jim,” Dean said, speaking quickly, “Jimmy, where’s Cas?”

“Gone.”

“What you mean gone?” Dean practically yelled, “You're alive, so’s he. Where is he?”

“He's not here,” Jimmy stressed back, “I’m sorry, Dean. He's gone.”

“He's no--” Dean choked on his tongue and aggressively ran a hand through his hair, sinking further down to the floor, “He can't.”

“I’m sorry,” said Jimmy, and it sounded like he meant it, “I know he was important.”

No amount of will power could force Dean’s chest to expand. The back of his throat worked as if he were choking. No. No. No. This wasn't…. Cas always came back. Always. He'd do it again. 

“Dean, it's okay,” said Jimmy softly in a lighter tone than Dean had ever heard Cas use, “I know how you felt about him. I could….”

Jimmy pushed himself away from the wall, watching Dean intently. He reached out, but Dean leaned back dodging Jimmy’s touch and the fingers passed by Dean’s face to rest on his knee. The hand moved up his leg and grasped at his exposed crotch, squeezing soft, delicate flesh. The second he made contact, Dean remember his open pants, and became hyper aware of Jimmy’s lack of clothing. 

“Don't,” shot Dean, knocking Jimmy’s hand away and scrambling backwards across the rough, threadbare carpet.

But Jimmy followed at a crawl. The weight of his front half put on the outside balls of his wrists, hands and fingers curled underneath him up towards his body.   
Congealed strings of red swung from the hole in his chest, stretching further down until they broke off in chunks to lie limply on the floor. And then new strings oozed forth. He kept eye contact with Dean, and Dean couldn’t look away. Jimmy’s head sat completely vertical between his shoulders, impossibly straight without a broken neck. 

“It’s okay, Dean,” he whispered, stepping forward on contorted wrists and a slide of his knee, “I can do it. Let me help you.”

“No, back off,” Dean stammered.

He frantically tried to scramble away, but Jimmy’s wrist snapped straight and slammed down on Dean’s ankle and drug him closer.

“It’s okay, Dean. I can take care of you.”

“No.”

Jimmy’s fingers were cool as they ran up Dean’s chest and arm reverently, as if he were touching gold. He scooted closer and closer, eagerly pressing his body along Dean’s side. 

He leaned forward, clammy lips brushing Dean’s ear, and said in a deeper voice, “I can be Cas. I am already.”

With a small gasp, Dean’s head snapped to look at him.

“Cas?” he asked in a much higher voice than usual, “Is--are you there?”

“He’s here,” replied Jimmy, but the familiar tombre was gone, and it crushed Dean, “He’s right here. Can’t you feel him?”

Dean cringed as Jimmy’s face pressed into his neck, his cheek, his chest. A sob left him. One of Jimmy’s hands worked into his pants and grasped him again. Teeth sank into Dean’s throat and stayed no matter how much he kicked and punched and squirmed, Jimmy holding him tight. Wet pooled on his shoulder and streaks of drool ran down his arm. 

“Cas,” Dean gasped, squeezing his eyes shut.

Jimmy rocked against his hip, pushing and grinding.

“Cas!”

~

“DEAN!” 

Violent, hiccuped, breathy sobs wracked his body. Small things came to him one at a time--the light to his right, the figure in front of him, the clothing on his body--clothing, not wet strings or nonelastic skin. He shuttered head to toe, choking back bile.

“Dean, look at me.”

Dry mouth, sticky lips, “Sam?”

But he didn’t look. A dull ache was growing in his biceps. Blinking, more blinking, and his vision sharpened. Hands gripped him. His eyes followed their arms up to the man sitting on his bed.

Dean recoiled and twisted his shoulders but the hands held him, “No, no.”

“Calm down, Dean, please. Focus on me, come on.”

The deep voice gave him pause, and he scrunched his eyes shut again.

“You’re safe, Dean. You’re in bed in your room.”

Something clicked in his mind, and he gradually relaxed.

“Cas?” he asked hesitantly.

“Yes, Dean, I’m here.”

Air rushed out of him, and he lunged forward, catching Cas’ face between his hands, and pressed their foreheads together.

“Cas,” he breathed in relief.

The angel’s arms slid around Dean and lightly held in place, touching his back.

He said gently, “You’re awake now. Breathe slowly.”

“Yeah,” whispered Dean, easing away, “Yeah.”

A chill hit his face. He swiped at it and realized it was lined with tears. Another vigorous rub over his face and a deep breath and he was back in reality. He pushed Cas’ arms away and slid his legs over the edge of the bed to come face to face with a frazzled haired Sam knelt on the floor. The panicked worry on his face was more than Dean could take.

“We couldn’t wake you up,” Sam told him, “You were crying and thrashing and calling for Cas, hit your head on the wall.”

“I’m fine,” Dean said testily, and finished standing up.

He meandered his way to the bathroom, eyes scanning around to make sure nothing from his dream was present in their identical room. Nothing stuck out, and he entered the bathroom, snapping the door closed behind him. 

Castiel and Sam looked at each other.

“Wake him up when I tell you,” ordered Cas in a flat tone.

Sam nodded, looking down at his hands, and muttered, “We need to find that spell.”

Retching floated through to them from the bathroom.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm going to edit better next weekend after a bunch of school stuff, but I didn't think it was fair to wait that long to put up the next one. :/


	4. Chapter 4

“Ah, hey, Dean?” called Sam from his favorite table in the library, “Dean?”

“Yeah,” answered Dean, breaking off a chunk of jerky between his teeth as he walked into the room.

With a click, Sam shut his laptop and cleared his throat, “So, I know you would prefer I never speak of it, but I’m going to, and you’re going to deal.”

Dean just stood there and chewed his jerky.  Standing, Sam figured he needed a battle stance for this.

“I think you should try medication, like a sedative, to help stop the nightmares.”

No effort whatsoever went into suppressing the eye roll.  

He shook his head and swallowed, and said, “No, Sam, just--”

“Leave it?  No, Dean, no.  I can’t.  You wouldn’t let me.”

“Sam--”

“Here, let me make this easy,” Sam interrupted again, pacing until he was just a couple feet in front of Dean, “I live with you.  I know your habits.  And what you drink.  You can take what I tell you to and try it out, or I can slip it to you anyway and draw on your face and take pictures while you’re out.”

Sam gave him a broad smile and crossed his arms over his chest.  The stink eye Dean gave him stayed on him as Dean huffed away.

~

“This,” said Sam, holding up a hefty-sized, white pill between his forefinger and thumb, “is Trazodone.  It’s 300mg, an almost dangerous dose.  I am going to give you one 30 minutes before bed every night, and we’ll see what it does.”

More eye rolling, but when Sam presented him with the pill and a glass of water, Dean took it and passed Sam’s inspection to make sure he swallowed it.  No nightmares,   
no anything actually.  Just sleep.

But Dean couldn’t admit to that.  

The next night was just as bland.  And by the third, he didn’t argue about taking the medication.  The two of them--without Cas--worked a grizzly ghost case with dismembered body part.  Cas flitted around from hospital to hospital for those few days and returned home when they did.  

Dean was glad to be back home.  Sometimes home was safe, other times it was suffocating, most often it was both.  But even then it was still comfortable, enough to put him in a good mood that lasted through the bruises he sported after talking Sam into sparring.  He popped his pill, passed inspection, and fell into his bed.  That was the best part of being home--his bed that smelled like him, his comforter that was soft and heavy, and his sheets that were always clean.  He burrowed down into them, smashing his face into his pillow so far it shouldn’t have been comfortable.   

~

“Wake up, Dean,” said Cas sternly, shaking the sleeping man’s shoulders, “Dean.”

Dean’s back curled up from the bed, his hand squeezed tight into the comforter.  Sweat was beading along his temples and down his jugular.  Cas grasped both his shoulders and shook harder.

“Dean, wake up!”

~

Sam’s door banged open, and immediately Cas found himself at gun point.

“What the hell, Cas!” Sam yelled, “I could have shot you.”

“It wouldn’t be of consequence,” said Cas dismissively, strolling into the room, “I can’t wake Dean up.”

“He’s drugged.  It’s Trazadone--”

“No, Sam, his nightmare is starting.  I cannot wake him.”

With a groan, Sam let go of his gun and aggressively rubbed the sleep from his eyes.  He swallowed and swung his legs over the edge of his bed.  Cas led him at a brisk pace back to Dean’s room and had him enter before him.

First Sam tried what Cas had, shaking and yelling, but it was no more productive.  Then he slapped him, which didn’t yield any results.  Sighing, Sam sat beside Dean’s gradually squirming form and looked to Cas.

“Any suggestions?” he asked.

Cas’ eyes trailed down to the concrete, and he shook his head, “No.”

“Tell me.”

Knowing it was going to make at least one of them angry with him, he looked back up, and said, “I could attempt to wake him from the inside.”

“You mean go into his dream.”

“Yes, I do not know if it would work and I do know you guys don’t like it when I invade your space.”

“Do it.”

Cas’ eyebrows rose.

“I’ll tell him it was my decision; I told you too.  He won’t get mad at you.”

He still hesitated.  Dean would just be mad at both of them.  From under his blanket, Dean gasped sharply and turned his head.  Resolved, Cas marched around to the other side of Dean’s bed, seated himself on the mattress, and reached out to press a hand to Dean’s forehead.

~

If he couldn’t feel the difference between reality and dream, for a second Castiel wouldn’t know if it had worked.  Sam wasn’t there, but Cas stood in the same room with Dean still in bed five feet from him, but he wasn’t alone.

Castiel tilted his head in confusion.

The prized comforter didn’t cover them completely, but the noises and movement left no room for misinterpretation.  Cas’ leg was bare stretched out from under the covers, muscles tensing and flexing.  Dean’s fingers dug into the back of Cas thigh, dimpling the flesh.  The leg didn’t seem able to be still, toes curling and uncurling.   
 The inside of Cas’ leg ran along Dean’s up to his hip and wrapped around him to keep him close and get him closer.  

Dean supported himself with his left arm, but it was the only stable part of either of them.  The bruising grip on Cas’ thigh lightened to scratches, fingers scraping up his hip and side, hand flattened, and ran over Cas’ chest.  It would have gone higher, but Cas’ hands had Dean’s head and neck in a firm grip, holding him in place to tongue fuck his throat.  

The air was thick with breathy pants, punctuated by a moan and sigh.  Cas gasped and arched up into Dean’s chest, his leg pulling higher and tighter up Dean’s thigh, head thrown back into the pillow.  His hand shot above him and gripped the headboard as if he were trying to pull it down on them.

Feeling the heat of Cas’ body pressed up into him was near orgasmic by itself.  Dean closed his eyes and breathed in their smell, but as Cas’ back lowered to the mattress, Dean’s eyes snapped open.  His fingers laced through Cas’ messy hair, gripped it, and yanked his head back to expose his throat.  Kissing was one thing, but the taste, the power that came with dragging his tongue along Cas’ throat was intoxicating.  The Atom’s apple was new, but it didn’t really register.  He sucked on the underside of Cas’ jaw, still keeping his head in place by his hair.  Rolling his hips up into Dean was the only productive movement Cas could make, and Dean would never think of preventing that.  

Castiel slowly walked around the bed to the other side.  He was sure the way Dean was relentlessly pounding the angel’s dream version into the bed was not correct for the joining of male anatomies, but he was also sure Dean had no experience with such a thing.  They were still both enjoying it greatly.  

Teeth marks and bruises marred Cas’ neck and shoulders.  He closed his eyes and ran a hand through his own disarrayed hair.  Arching his back again, he sighed as Dean’s teeth scraped over a nipple.  He sucked harder, and Cas’ sigh turned into a groan.  Light fingertips trailed from Cas’ collar bone, over his shoulder, and down his arm.  Inside of the elbow was particularly sensitive--particularly now.  Dean’s touch moved over the inside of Cas’ wrist, his fingers slowly curling around it, and twisted.

The bones gave an audible crack.  

Cas tried to pull away, but Dean pushed him down and fucked into him harder.  It took a minute, but Cas allowed it as if he had forgotten about his wrist.  Dean latched onto his bottom lip, curled a fist, and landed the blow up under the angel’s ribs.  A couple more punches bruised his entire side--too much bruising.  It didn’t quite correlate.  

Castiel’s frown deepened.  The bruise pattern--outline and tone and color--it was specific and clear.  

The bottom of Dean’s gaze caught it too.  It was familiar, but when it had been on his body, kicks had formed it.  Several kicks.  He shouldn’t have let the werewolf run, Dad was very clear on that, but he told Sammy it was the wolf that had hurt him.  Werewolves scared the boy for a long time after that.  

Without the thought so much as crossing his mind, Dean twisted Cas’ wrist, and it snapped all over again.  This time Cas’ let out a shout.  

The entire scene might have been more alarming than concerning if Castiel’s vessel couldn’t hear the actual Dean screaming his name.

A tight grip on Cas’ wrist, Dean twisted, it broke a third time.

Again.

And again.    

Cas was screaming now, curling in on himself.

And when Dean released Cas’ arm for just a few seconds, his arm disappeared.  Nuzzling under the angel’s ear, Dean sank his teeth into the pulse of his neck.  Blood exploded in his mouth.  He moved his lips up to Cas’, who kissed him back desperately, as if kissing Dean enough would make the pain go away.  

And just like that, he was gone.

With a jolt, Dean fell forward a few inches and opened his eyes to nothing but a pillow. 

It gave him pause.  Confusion was clear on his face.  He set his other hand down into wet fabric.  A dark wetness spread over the sheets.  Dean shoved himself back.  More blood soaked the bed, and spotted in it were black patches.  Carefully pinching one, Dean brought it to his face.  Already panicked, it took his mind a few seconds to grasp what he was holding.  

It was a feather, a black feather.  

Breath wouldn’t pass in or out of him.  His throat closed, but his mouth worked.  He wasn’t thinking anymore, throwing edges of the blanket back, shoving away the pillows, moving, scrambling to get off it--blood soaked everything.  He reached down, and his hand came back full of feathers.  They stuck to his stomach and legs, skin smeared and hands coated.  It didn’t seem like there were so many, but every time his hand lost contact with the mattress, there were more.  

His vessel in contact with Dean’s actual body, Castiel could feel Dean's pulse racing to dangerous levels, tissues throughout his body becoming hypoxic from inability to inhale, from screaming for Cas.

“Dean,” said Castiel, closing the space between him and the bed, “Dean, look at me.”

His words were not heard.  Cas threw a knee up on the mattress and grasped Dean’s shoulders to turn him and force him to see.  

“Look at me, Dean,” he said sternly, “Look.”

Dean’s gaze flickered right through him.  Resigned, Cas put his hands on the sides of Dean’s head and yanked his consciousness to the surface.

~

So disoriented, Dean shoved and twisted, his throat raw and swollen from screaming and gasping.  His eyes were open, but he saw nothing.  First one arm and then   
the other, Cas caught Dean’s arms as he flailed, but he yanked on them so hard to get away, Cas let go, afraid holding on would hurt him.  

Dean clutched the edge of his mattress, threw his head over, and vomited onto the floor.  Tears dropped from his chin and ran off the end of his nose.  Snot and puffy eyes, Cas had never seen Dean in such a state.  He looked to Sam for guidance, but the younger Winchester wasn’t there.

Across the room, backed up against the dresser, Sam’s gaze was horrifyingly transfixed on his brother, a hand pressed over his mouth, the other arm tucked tight over his stomach as if in protection.  

“Sam?”

Castiel received no reaction.  Realizing he was on his own, Cas grabbed Dean’s bicep and pulled him up into a sitting position.  Dean pushed back at him, mumbling.

“No, no no no.”

“Look at me, Dean.”

Cas grabbed his head hard and forced him to stay where he was.

“Cas!” yelled Dean, still shoving at the angel like he had to escape, but might as well have been pushing on a concrete wall, “Cas.”

“I’m right here, Dean.  Calm down.”

He decided to change tactics.  Letting Dean’s head go, he grabbed his wrists and pulled Dean’s hands to him, one on his face, the other splayed on his chest.

“I’m right here, Dean.  Listen to me.”

For a minute, Dean stilled and choked on the back of his throat, but still pulling against the grip.

“See, Dean, feel me?  I'm with you.  I'm right here.”

Turning his head, Castiel pressed his lips into the palm of Dean’s hand and spoke softer, “Look at me.  Please.”

It was difficult to blink through his stiff, swollen eyes, but Dean was trying.  His panic was screaming at him, and every churning emotion was yelling to do something, but he had no idea what.  His mind though, was combating knowing he was in the same room and also knowing he wasn’t soaked and there was a person, a familiar voice, practically sitting in his lap.  

“Dean.”

“Cas?”

“Yes.  Yes, I’m fine.  I’m here.”

One final, shuddering breath left the distraught man.  His hand moved around to the back of Cas’ neck and up.  Dean watched him intently, calculatingly, his gaze   
searching Cas for any sign that he was hurt, upset, or for any reason not real.  It took a few seconds, but reality finally clicked.  His fingers slowly curled into Cas’ hair.  

Breathing his name, Dean wrapped Cas in both arms and pulled him forward.  Castiel tucked Dean’s face in the crook of his neck and locked him in.  Even if he tried, Dean wouldn’t be able to get away.  His body shook and trembled and words tried to leave him, apologies, but they were garbled and nearly inaudible.  The position they were in, Cas’ folded leg atop Dean’s twisted thighs as he leaned into him--it was uncomfortable.  Dean’s legs had to be tingling, but Castiel wouldn't move until he was sure it wouldn't have a negative effect. 

After a few minutes, Dean began to stabilize, and as he calmed, he seemed to realize what he was doing. With a hiccup, he tried to pull away, but Cas held him.

"No," he said simply, and Dean was too drug out to argue.

Several moments later, Sam cautiously approached the bed and sat a decent distance away, careful to avoid the vomit puddle. 

He said hesitantly, "Dean? You okay?"

With a swallow, Dean said thickly, "Fine, Sammy. Just a nightmare." His hands fisted the back of Cas' jacket and whispered so softly only the angel could hear, "Right?"

His arms tightened instinctively around the strong man so fragile in his arms, and he said, "Just a nightmare."

Even after Cas—reluctantly—let him go, it was a while before Dean was okay. Cas didn't say anything, and Sam's only comment was "Maybe drugs aren't your answer". Thoroughly coddled, Dean rubbed his eyes and held his face, elbows on knees, to avoid seeing them look at him like he would shatter. As a child he didn’t think   
he felt so much like an infant as he did then. Crying, screaming, puking, clinging to Cas like a fucking touchy, overdramatic teen, he couldn't even be angry with them for wanting to handle him with gloves. 

Sam spoke tentatively, "You… you were screaming. A lot. Like, you didn't stop… and kept thrashing… crying…."

"Yeah, I got it, Sam, thanks," Dean said without picking his head up.

"Don't… don't be angry with Cas," Sam continued, "I told him to. He didn’t want to."

"Didn't want to what?" asked Dean without much caring but glad to talk about someone else.

"Go in your dream."

Every muscle in his body tensed. All over again, he found his throat sealed up and panic rising. How much of his dream had Cas seen? From the beginning or just the end? He wasn't even sure which scenario was worse. What did he desire less: Cas thinking Dean wanted to fuck him senseless or thinking Dean dreamed about causing him extraordinary amounts of pain? Of course in reality, he probably thought both. 

"That was how I was able to wake you," Castiel explained, eyeing him for any reaction, "I had to—essentially—drag your consciousness to the forefront of your mind."

"How—how long were you in my head?" asked Dean, raising his head from his hands.

"Almost no time," Cas replied, "I grabbed you and brought you out."

But Dean could tell the way Sam's frown appeared and disappeared, Cas had been in his head for a while. Never in all the times he disappointed his father and his brother, all the new high schools and fumbling with girls and drunken outbursts, had Dean Winchester wished to disappear more desperately than he did at that moment. Nothing compared. 

Dean cleared his throat, eyes on the mattress, and asked, "Cas, could you go make some food?"

The suggestion perplexed the angel, but he nodded, sure Dean was okay now, or on his way to being okay. Sam could care for him now. Reaching out, Cas touched his fingers to the side of Dean's neck. It was all the human could do to not lean away from him. The instant their skin touched, the swollen soreness in Dean's throat vanished.


	5. Chapter 5

Neither brother could return to sleep. The kitchen smelled horrifically burnt as they entered, but then the smell vanished and Cas produced plates of perfectly cooked sausage, bacon, and eggs. Dean had never seen such a blatant misuse of angelic grace, and would have smiled and picked on him for it if Dean hadn’t been nauseated by having to be in the same room with him.

But Cas seemed to get it. He didn’t speak or didn’t try to fuss over Dean, just set the plates down, nodded at Sam when thanked, and exited the kitchen. 

Leaning against a bookcase, Castiel scrubbed a hand over his face. Humans made no sense. Every time he thought he was beginning to understand, something he never imagined could ever be an issue shook his world. Dreaming about sex meant that sex was wanted right? Wouldn’t that also mean that Dean wanted to hurt him? But then it was said that dreams meant nothing, just an uprising of emotions and sensations slapped together by the human psyche. 

It was a pitiful shelter, he knew. Dean’s dreams were too consistent, too vivid and emotionally volatile to be random. It was difficult to decypher with just one solid encounter to go on, but it seemed hurting him caused Dean most of the anguish that left him so violently shaken. Surely that meant Dean didn't actually want to harm him.

Pain was easy enough to fathom, but the sex was… he didn't know what. Dean had no interest in males and prided himself on it. For a minute, Cas thought through Dean’s cases before the nightmares started--dismembered children for one, and then there were ghosts, vamps, werewolves, the usual. Nothing seemed like it would have triggered something like this. 

Perhaps, Cas thought, easing himself down into one of the wooden chairs, lacing his fingers in his lap, and frowning at a small crack in the table top--perhaps   
physically hurting Castiel had produced a need to physically comfort him? Or dreams of such intimacy had created a subconscious reflex to fight it.

Castiel massaged his brows. It didn't matter did it? Right now he was most concerned with Dean’s state at the present moment. This was the kind of thing his charge would torture himself over, even more so now that Castiel had witnessed it. He didn't need inside Dean’s head to know the knots he was tying himself into over whatever that was that resembled homosexuality. And how badly he was beating himself up over hurting Cas. And in addition, Castiel was at risk of being shut out completely from Dean’s fear and embarrassment over things Cas wouldn’t think twice, or sometimes even once, about.

He rubbed his face again. Perhaps he could restock the kitchen. Or organize some of his newly created Men of Letters folders.

~

Around nine in the morning, Sam collapsed in bed. He wasn’t a particularly big fan of sleeping at that moment, especially when he knew Dean was just as tired, if not more, but his big brother swore he wasn’t sleeping anytime soon. 

Thinking Dean would occupy himself in his bedroom to avoid the obligation of all the work on the bunker that still had yet to be done, Castiel closed the ancient volume in his hands and gently set it in its place on the shelf. Despite twisting his brain until nothing at all made sense any longer, he was certain allowing Dean time alone, time to think without clearing all of this up, was an extremely bad idea. He would dig himself deeper and deeper until he was irrevocably buried.

Cas stood and made his way to Dean’s room where he found the door open and light on. Inside he could hear the sliding of records. With a couple knuckle taps, he wrapped on the door. Dean turned and looked at him from his crouched position, hesitantly standing and swallowing, like he was about to be run down by an angry giant. 

“I need to speak with you,” Cas started, “Sam is asleep, so this I thought would be an acceptable time.”

“Ah,” Dean started, looking around and rubbing the palms of his hands together, “My room needs a good clean. Can we do this later?”

Castiel frowned as he scanned the room himself, finding a rumpled bed set and a towel lying over the puke puddle. With a wave of his hand, the vomit and towel vanished. Another wave and the blankets tugged themselves straight, the pillows flopping into place. Castiel’s blank look shifted from the bed to Dean, who was zoning out on the floor, wringing his hands. 

“Is this now acceptable?” asked Cas.

Dean’s eyes closed. He put his hands out exasperatedly and turned away.

“Sure!” he said angrily, “Let’s hear it.”

“How did your wrist get broken?”

Dean stopped. 

“What?”

“Your wrist. When the bones cracked, every time there was an echo of pain I could feel, you could feel. You are familiar with that pain. How did it come about?”

“Why would you ask about that?” 

“Please tell me, Dean.”

Cas’ voice was calm and stable but held a warning that made Dean’s protests sputter as he paced his room. He had no snarky remark or adequate distraction prepared for this. A hundred questions were justified and expected about what Castiel was apparently not going to let go, but his wrist wasn’t anywhere on the list of possibilities. A few inches from the wall, Dean stopped, keeping his back to the rest of the room. He rubbed his right wrist. The memory of pain from the dream had faded, but the memory of the actual break was stronger even from so long ago. 

“I dropped Sam,” Dean said quietly, “Hurt him…. He was a year old, fussing all night. When he got loud, Dad woke up and would get angry I wasn’t keeping him quiet, so I--I took him over to the microwave and warmed up a bottle. I tried to be quiet, but Dad sat up. I gave Sam the bottle, and he quieted down, but Dad was still…. He wasn’t happy ‘cuz he just got back from a hunt, needed sleep. I practically ran, but I was still holding Sam, banged his head on the doorframe, dropped him. He cried, cut on his ear. Dad was so mad. He picked up Sam and just… screamed at me. Grabbed my hand and yanked it. I don’t know if he meant to break it.” Dean turned back around to Cas, “I mean, why he want to do that? He didn’t want it to be that bad. He just wanted me to be more careful with Sammy. In the morning he twisted it back and showed me how to wrap it. Sammy’s ear was fine. I checked on him when he was sleeping. It wasn’t bad.”

Despite the inherent inability for angels to fully experience emotions in the sense humans could recognise, Castiel’s jaw tightened. He forced his breath out slowly. Dean felt guilty for the sacrifice his father made to save his life, guilty for his father’s 100 years in Hell, but the more Castiel understood in Dean, the more deserving those years were. Castiel allowed himself 30 seconds to silently damn John Winchester before he focused back on Dean, who was looking at him like he needed nothing more than for Castiel to believe and confirm that his father had not meant to wound him so badly. Even knowing he was supposed to lie so Dean could still have that hope, he could not.

“I remember that injury,” he said instead, looking thoughtful.

“What? How do you remember before you were on Earth?”

Cas’ eyes shifted back to him, and answered, “Your corpse had been breaking down for four months by the time I brought your soul back to it, but four months is not long   
enough to remove evidence of trauma, especially to bone. When I remade every cell in your body, I could feel further resistance from older injuries. That was one of the oldest.”

“Well,” said Dean, pacing away again, “That’s weird and creepy.”

“Your body was riddled with previous fractures and breaks and damage improperly cared for. There was a set of injuries all roughly around the same period--most of your ribs were broken in multiple places, sections of your spine, clavicle, shoulders, hands, lower legs, pelvis, and a section on the back of your skull. I remember them clearly because they bothered me at the time. What happened?”

“That’s not your business,” Dean told him, his voice forceful but measured.

A frown creased Castiel’s face, and he asked, “Why will you not tell me?”

“I said it’s not your business. Drop it.”

The frown only deepened, “Dean--”

“Damn it, Cas! Leave it! Learn when to quit. Just get out.”

Weather his hands clenched tight out of anger or simply to keep them from shaking, his nails were damn near drawing blood from his palms. He clenched his jaw tight, reflexively swallowing. Cas always knew how to make a bad situation worse. There were things he never wanted to think about again, and here was the fucking angel dragging it all up without knowing a thing about what he was asking.

“I will leave if that is what you want, but I need to show you something first.”

Rolling his eyes and closing them as though praying for patience, Dean exhaled slowly. He turned part way and glanced sideways at the angel with a look that told everyone else to back off. But this was Castiel, and the rules that governed everyone else didn’t apply to him. He walked over to stand directly in front of Dean and began rolling down his sleeve. Dean leaned away, for a moment concerned he was about to be angel fisted in the soul, but Cas held his hand between them, palm facing him, reached up with his other hand, and yanked his wrist 90 degrees around. The sound wasn’t as loud as Dean had dreamed or remembered, but it was all he could hear. He flinched and stepped back, eyes wide, not at all sure what was going on.

“Fix it!” he yelled, gesturing to the twisted hand, “Fix it, Cas!”

His eyes began running from surface to surface, searching for anything to brace it with, but Cas waited for Dean to look at him, reached over again, and twisted his wrist back in place. Making sure Dean was watching, Cas moved his hand back and forth, rolled it one way and back the other, and wiggled his fingers.

“It doesn’t hurt, Dean,” he said quieter than before, “This body doesn’t really feel pain. It’s not actually me. I control it. Here.” Cas stepped closer again, recovering Dean’s lost step, “Try it.”

“What? No!”

“Do it. You won’t be able to. Try.”

“No. That’s sick.”

“Dean--”

“I’m not going to hurt you!”

Before the running and anger could kick in further, Castiel grabbed the back of Dean’s hand and put his fingers around Cas’ palm. Dean struggled against the hold but   
got nowhere. Cas’ hands and arms didn't even wobble.

“Let go!”

“Break it.”

“NO! I’m not hurting you! I don't hurt you!”

“No, you don’t. I know that. You do not.”

Dean yanked at his hand, his face and ears growing red with frustration and exertion, anger and panic. 

“I will let you go after you try.”

Attempting to calm his breath, Dean scrubbed a hand over his brow. 

He swallowed and cleared his throat to dislodge the crack in his voice, “Cas, I… this doesn’t make sense.”

“Show me you know you cannot harm me,” explained Cas slowly.

Maliciously, Dean glared at him. Castiel, angel or not, did not get to treat him like a child.

His fingers tightened around Cas’ hand, but he waited, wanting Cas to stop him. When he didn’t, Dean took another deep breath and twisted. Almost immediately the movement stopped. His fingers were allowed to release but not to retreat. 

“Again. You can add more force.”

Dean gritted his teeth, gripped the hand, and yanked. It stopped again. Dean didn’t let go. His eyes moved up to Cas’ as if in question and received a blank nod. Reaffirming his hold, he held his breath, and increased the pressure. Pushed harder. He put his shoulder into it and used his weight, but it seemed he had come up against an immovable force. Before in the green room, out of frustration, Dean had punched the angel in the face, making his head snap to the side. Sure, it hadn’t hurt him, but it did have some effect. 

As if he had read Dean’s mind, Castiel told him, “My vessel is human and can be affected by physical means, but I am an angel. I can exert my will, my grace, over this body and alter it, feel it, or not.”

It was too much. Embarrassment coated his insides, but that didn't stop them from wriggling. He had to pace to relieve some of the energy pulsing in him. All of this was bad enough, torture actually, and now? This too? The implications of Castiel having mapped out his entire entire body…. Dean didn’t want to think about it. He wasn’t entirely sure he had the mental capacity to sort it all out. The dream, the nightmare, the rough outline of his life laid out in bone for his friend to read--he just couldn’t….

Gently bowing his head, Cas said softly, “I will leave you in peace now. If you need to speak with me--”

“Yeah, I get it. Whatever,” Dean cut in, waving him off.

Cas’ eyes tracked him for a few seconds too long before gathering himself and leaving.

~

As expected, Dean was not overly friendly or forthcoming with anything, not even where he went when he left. Castiel didn't push him. While Dean was in the bunker without a specific goal, he either locked (literally locked) himself in his room or spent time in the sparing room on the other side of the bunker.

It was a good place to be--mat over most of the concrete floor, punching bags hung periodically, and dummies perfectly okay with him taking out his frustration on them. Racks of weapons lined the walls, but instead of metal, these were replicated with wood. All of them were suspiciously well balanced and accurately weighted.

Usually he used a glove or at least wrapped his knuckles with tape, but the pain was distracting, now and later when the raw skin burned and stung. 

His fists flew--left, right, left.

Right, right, jab. 

Left, upper cut, right.

Right, left, right.

Right, left, right, left, right, le--

“Dean.”

His knuckles skidded over the harsh cloth of the bag.

“What, Sam?” he said gruffly, repositioning his feet.

Left, right, left.

“I might have a case. Cas too. He thinks he’ll probably head out and meet us back here in a week or two,” explained Sam, leaning on the edge of the entrance, frowning as his eyes followed Dean’s dripping, raw hands, “Utah.”

“Utah,” repeated Dean enthusiastically. 

~ 

He didn’t let Sam drive the whole way, and when they arrived at the tiny town with daylight to spare, he got them a dingy room and quickly changed into his fed threads. Sam was far less eager but refused to be left out.

Especially when it led to taking on a ghost at 3am. By the time they returned to a place with a bed, the sun was rising, and Sam was beyond caring. He crashed; Dean ate, took a walk around the town, got in some high quality flirting and managed to come up with a heroic story behind his wrapped knuckles, and grabbed his brother some lunch. Apparently 11:30am was not an ideal time to wake up. Cardboard cups of drink nearly toppled onto the floor from their flimsy holder as Dean dodged one pillow, then two. 

By this point in their hunting careers, they really should have known to stay in town longer than they thought necessary. The expectedly unexpected result was that they were again, or still, ghost hunting to figure out what was missed in their first go. It didn’t last long enough to justify another motel room. 

Sam eyed his brother concernedly as they settled into the Impala’s front seat, Dean behind the wheel. Pink had begun to ring his eyes, a shadow forming underneath. His head tilted slightly further forward than usual, and his blinks were gradually sticking longer and longer.

“Want me to drive for a while?” asked Sam lightly.

Dean sucked in a breath through his nose and sat up straighter, “Nah, I got it.”

An hour later, Sam’s book jerked too much to read. He hadn’t been expecting a rough road. With a glance up, he lunged for the wheel.

“Dean!” 

With a yank of the wheel, they directed the tires back up on the road, narrowly avoiding throwing Baby in the ditch. 

“Jesus, Dean. Stop the car. Now.”

Dean pulled over without further protest. 

“In the back. Sleep,” Sam commanded, opening his door. 

Dean’s gut reaction was to object, but he knew he had no ground to stand on, so grudgingly, he got out of the Driver’s seat and opened the door to the back, climbing in. For a long time after the car started moving again he stared at the opposite door handle, vision fuzzy but unable to fully sleep. 

Eventually he did, and his brother left him there on the back seat parked in the garage. Sam didn’t even close the car door all the way to avoid its noise. Same for the garage door that led into the bunker, but there he stopped and took a deep breath.

“Castiel,” he whispered, “I think you should do it. I know you don't want to, and I don't want you to either, but... I’m starting to think Heaven’s library is the only place we’ll find anything…. Please, Cas….”

Sam’s phone vibrated in his pocket--text message.

‘Do not tell him in case I do not return.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry for the lateness--finals week in nursing school. Or Hell, whichever.   
> This is not my best writing, but a lot of it just sort of had to happen to move on. I'm posting two more by the time my next quarter starts. Thanks for being patient.
> 
> Bisou


	6. Chapter 6

Dean trailed his fingers along the wallpaper, smooth and cool to his fingertips. The carpet was a boring beige so short it barely crunched under his filthy boots. This hallway was ridiculously long. He didn't know how many rooms he had passed, but no noise came from any of them. He was pretty sure he was alone, all alone in this massive hotel.

His nail snagged on a hard edge, but that wasn't surprising. He kept going. The slight muffle of his footfalls deteriorated to nothing, and they began to echo, thudding on a stone floor, the same dark stone his fingers ran over. Their cold was harsh and biting and made his fingertips tingle. 

Behind him was light, growing more and more distant. That was the hotel. In front of him was dim flickering. That was a dungeon, one that for reasons unknown could hold an angel.

He strode further into the dark, his heart beating higher and higher in his chest. He felt like he had just left but was as excited about returning as if he had been anything his whole life. 

The hallway bloomed out into a ceilingless, circular stone room equally as dark broken only by bracketed torches on the wall and on the floor as if providing further caging to the figure spread and chained between them. Various tables and trunks and open wooden containers spotted the room. Only years before the simple sight of this room made Dean nauseous and brought him to his knees, but the blood on the instruments and tables and walls was not his. Alistar wasn’t here. Cas was. 

Spanning 30 feet, Cas’ wings pressed flat into the room’s curve, bolted to the wall at their arches and ends. His arms were more loosly restrained with chains above his head, gravity dragging free blood down the length of his arms. Wider than shoulder width, his ankles were secured to the floor. It was particularly satisfying when his force lifted the angel off his feet. Even if the walls had been as dark as hell was capable of, the shimmering black of those silky feathers still would stand out. 

Dean approached him and stopped. He extended his arm and ran the back of his hand down Cas’ cheek. One step closer. 

He leaned down and nuzzled into Cas’ hair, lips brushing Cas’ temple as he whispered, “Can you still here me? Are you cold yet?”

Not even the slightest twitch answered him. 

“Maybe,” he pressed his body closer into bare flesh, “Still so good though.”

The taste and feel of that delicate skin behind the angel’s ear was exquisite. He nibbled at the upper arm closest to his face. With a quick motion, he gripped the hem of his own shirt and flipped it over his head to press skin to skin. That was right; it felt right. Lacerations raked across Castiel’s chest, muscle and flesh sagging in a mocking trace of his ribs. Few patches of skin were left perfect and silken, and others were gutted, both so appealing in their own way. Low on his stomach was Dean’s latest favorite spot--a hollowed out tunnel, a hole perfectly sized for fucking. Several sticky and crusty holes pocked Cas’ body and though they were wonderful, none were as good as his natural ones. 

Dean set a hand on Cas’ ribs, splaying his fingers, the tips each claiming their own slash. He pushed through soggy tissue and scraped his nails over bone.

Cas didn’t move. He hadn’t for a while. 

“Still so good though,” Dean repeated to himself like a groan.

With his other hand, he reached up and curled his fingers around the top rung of Cas’ wing. This bone that lined the top of those magnificent wings--this bone was intact. The other one had collapsed, crushed under his grip mid orgasm. 

Dean’s lips quirked at the memory. Cas had screamed then, screamed like Dean had never heard before out of any creature. The tension that spread through the angel’s body was orgasmic in itself. 

A growl left Dean’s throat. He grabbed at his belt and ripped it off, nearly popping the button off and breaking the zipper in his haste. He knew he had left Castiel not that long ago, but all the urgency of needing him slammed again. Dean was starving for it. His erection rubbed over the entrance of two carved fuck holes, but he didn’t want those. He glided his hand up the inside of Cas’ thigh, his fingers pushing up to the hole he knew by heart. It wasn’t as exquisitely tight as it had been at first, but there was something equally erotic about its submission, the tight ring that guarded its body now so open and willing. He slid in, and his eyes rolled back. 

The smoothness, the softness, the battered and broken body giving way to him--jesus. Was there anything better? 

He grabbed a handful of feathers. It took several thrusts for the feathers to come loose and a thin patch became visible. Some patches were bald. Dean slid his hands through the silk, curled his fingers into feathers, and ripped them out. 

Cas didn’t move. 

Dean nibbled on the angel’s ear, his hand searching up, looking for the hollow bone that made a perfect handle.

“Dean, I--”  
The words didn’t register.

The angel Castiel stood several feet behind them beside a dripping table. He wanted to wake Dean, bring him back to reality, but even he was stunned. A discomfort grew in his chest.

Quietly, he said, “Dean?” 

Again, the moving figure ignored him and continued pounding into the limp man hanging by flesh and metal, clinking with every movement. Dean’s face buried in Cas’ neck. He didn’t nibble or suck. His teeth sank in and disappeared, jaw clenching. He needed more. He needed to fuck him deeper, harder, to taste and feel and own the ruined body before him. He needed to be the one that ruined him. 

The chunks of flesh remained attached but only barely. Dean switched and attacked the other side, his right hand reaching up to the neglected wing and latching onto feathers. His grip on the other wing’s bone was tightening. Violently Dean released Cas’ neck and crashed his mouth to the broken, slack jaw of his angel. Messily he spread the taste of blood in Cas’ mouth, coating the roof of his mouth and slicking his dry tongue. The combination was so powerful, Dean ripped a handful of feathers, let them flutter to the floor, and wrapped his arm tight around Cas’ waist, pulling his closer, feeling the shreds of flesh press into his own chest. The closer and more secure the body was, the deeper he could get in it. 

Castiel started towards them.

It was too much--too much need, too much desperation, too much demand for Cas’ body to supply. Like collapsing porcelain, the wing bone caved in under Dean’s hand. 

Castiel stopped abruptly and then lost a step, his foot sliding back over sticky stone. For most of his life the mere thought of defiling an angel in any one of these ways was a guaranteed painful ticket to Hell. But to see them done to him? To have Dean’s mind put this scenario together, to have Dean be the one who did it? Castiel didn’t know what he was supposed to do or how he was supposed to react. He rolled his shoulder sympathetically, as if that would work out the phantom pain.

“Still so good,” Dean moaned, but it echoed louder and longer than normal.

With a spec of relief, Castiel pushed himself forward, realizing that this was at least not entirely created by Dean’s mind. 40 years in hell left memory the brain wouldn't want to acknowledge but wouldn't be able to get rid of. One step after another, he was running. He reached Dean, planted his hands on the side of his head (trying not to look at the mangled mess three feet away), and pulled.

~

He was on the floor, a cold, hard floor. His legs were restrained, but he whirled, arms crashing into one thing and hitting another. A sharp burning rushed up his throat, and his insides squirmed. Pressure on his shoulders, on his face, and he realized he was being attacked. Wild swings met only air. Where was Cas? Was he under attack too? Goddamnit, his legs were worthless!

A sudden inhale filled his lungs with water. Cold ran from his hairline into his eyes, and the frigidness burned in his chest. He sputtered, his hand loudly slapping in a puddle on the floor.

“Look at me, Dean. Look at me!”

Dean tried to say his name, but the S barely escaped him before he was choking again. 

“Focus!”

Sam’s hands firmly placed on his face and shook him.

Quick blinks knocked the remaining water from his lashes. The ceiling light of his room was on, illuminating the floor—concrete, not stone. 

“Cas,” he rasped.

Fuck, his throat hurt. 

“Cas, plea--Cas.”

Dean didn't know what he was trying to beg for, but it was the most important thing in the world. 

“Where… Cas….”

“I am here, Dean.” 

Dean whipped his head around and tried to kick his legs free of the blanket that had tumbled out of bed with him. Images that normally faded flashed--scraped out ribs, broken wings, hollowed holes just the perfect size. He couldn’t swallow the taste away. Scrambling to his knees, his balance was all over the place. Planting one foot on the blanket, he tried to stand. The hard warmth of his erection pressed into his belly, and his stomach rolled again. He dropped back to all fours and emptied the rest of his stomach.  
Strings of spit and stomach acid clung to his lips, but he swiped them away with his arm. Sam grabbed onto his shoulders to stabilize him. 

“It’s okay, Dean,” he said urgently, “It’s okay, just calm down. Breathe. There, that’s better. Are you better? Dean, talk to me.”

Dean’s fingers curled into Sam’s shirt, knotting the thin fabric.

“Cas… I don’t--I didn’t--Cas--”

“Listen to me, Dean. I need you to breathe. You have to calm down. Cas--”

Dean’s head snapped towards him, but Sam was looking past him, and continued, “Can you go get more water?”

As badly as he wanted to see Cas, know without a doubt he was okay and alive and… undamaged, wanted to explain until his face turned blue--some part of him couldn’t meet his angel’s eyes, couldn’t even look at his face. Panting, sick, and panicked, he still felt the heat of shame rise in him. 

Shuffling feet and rustling fabric passed him by, but he still couldn’t look. He closed his eyes and tried to control his breathing.

Nightmare, he told himself, nightmare, a really fucking bad one but still a nightmare. Not real. It repeated over and over in his head. He tried to stand and didn’t quite manage it without Sam’s help but pushed him away and stumbled out into the hall, falling into the wall. Using it to support himself, he made his way to the nearest bathroom, every step making him more grateful his legs weren’t restrained. 

He couldn’t keep doing this. He couldn’t--he just--his sanity couldn’t take it. His heart couldn’t take it. How long was Cas gone? A long ass time. That should help, not make it worse. 

Dean turned on the faucet of the shower, but he didn't get in.

He just stood there and stared through the spray at porcelain tile.

Showers were not necessary.

Just the noise was calming. Getting in wasn’t needed.

He couldn’t take off his clothes.

Sinking down to the chair beside the shower, not bothering to remove the towel and socks on it, he failed to shake the images free. The grid pattern on the floor doubled and blurred and popped out like a 3D image under his stare.

“Dean?”

He jumped at his name, and growled, “Leave me alone.”

“Dean, you’ve been in there for half an hour. You--are you okay?”

“Fine, Sam. Go away.”

“Listen, I thou--”

“Go away, Sam!”

He heard the sigh through the door, “Right, fine, I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

He listened to Sam’s feet slide away. A thought hit him so hard, he caught his breath.

“Sam! Sam!”

The dull feet scrambled back to the door.

“Yeah, Dean? I’m here.”

“Is he--he’s here? Cas. Is he… okay?”

“Yeah, Dean, he’s back. He was in heaven. There was a fight. He got stabbed, but he’s healing. He’ll be fine.”

“Stabbed. Where?”

“Dean, like I said, he’ll be fine.”

“Is he… mad… at me?”

“No, no, he’s not, Dean. No one is mad at you.”

Lowering his face to his hands, Dean’s whole body melted. This was out of control. This was ridiculous. This was a stupidly comfortable place to sleep.

~

“Wait, no, stop, just sit.”

Sam was starting to feel like a mom. He refolded the pink rag in his hand and pushed Cas down into the table chair. He wasn’t sure if he should pull Cas’ shirt off to get at the wound in his side or if cleaning it was necessary because he doubted Cas could get an infection. Sam dropped to one knee and spread his large hand out over Cas’ side until his rays of light couldn’t seep through. 

A grunt pushed its way out of Cas. He grimaced and sunk teeth into his bottom lip, a grip tightly curled around the top of the back of the chair. 

“What happened, man?”

“I was seen. And I was not welcome,” Cas said breathily, “It didn’t matter though. I couldn’t get deep enough through the library. How long have I been gone?”

“Three weeks. Dean had a nightmare about 12 days in, and then another one at 17 days, and then tonight. Worse every time.”

Shrugging out of his trenchcoat, Cas let it fall to the floor and took over keeping pressure on his wound. With a sigh of his own, Sam pulled over the nearest chair, dropped into it, and propped his face up, elbows on the table.

Quietly, he asked, “What’s going on? What is he dreaming about, Cas?”

A frown gradually grew on Cas’ face, convinced more as he thought that Dean would not want him to tell Sam.

“Please, Cas.”

Cas released a breath and leaned back into his chair, a shock of pain tensing the entire left side of his body.

“He wouldn’t want me to tell you--”

“I know, I know he wouldn’t, Cas, but what--I don’t know what to do. Maybe I can help.”

“I honestly don’t know if you can…. I can’t tell you everything, and you can’t tell him anything.”

“I understand,” Sam earnestly, scooting closer in his chair.

“I’m his dreams, he hurts me,” Cas started, and Sam immediately frowned, “It’s not all that happens and it’s not all bad, but I think that’s the part that causes most of his anguish. He hurts me sometimes quite horrifically, sometimes he can’t find me, and sometimes I am hurt in ways he was hurt in the past—from Hell or your father.”

“Dad? What’s he got to do with anything?” 

“Dean projects some of that abuse onto me.” 

“Wait, wait, what are you talking about specifically?”

“When you were too young to remember, he carried you and knocked your head on a doorframe because he was worried your crying would upset your father. John broke his wrist and then twisted it back into place.”

For a minute Sam looked at him blankly, blinking as the information sank in. Every time he thought he had a clear picture of what Dean went through trying to raise him--in place of a father--despite a father…. Every time Sam learned something Dean’s life got clearer, and it got darker. It wasn’t imaginable to treat his child--any child--the way John Winchester treated Dean. Dean, of all people, who did anything and everything for his family, who would sacrifice his own life, sanity, and happiness for his brother and his father. Sam couldn’t fathom such loyalty to an abuser, even Dad. 

“So… his nightmares are breaking your hand?” asked Sam, his frown deeper.

“Two of them have been. Sometimes he loses me or accidentally kills me. Among those things are the abuses he suffered… which is why it doesn’t make sense…. Sometimes the events are from Hell…. In Hell, he was tortured in such a way but these--they’re from when he was younger, and I do not think John sexually abused him. I need to figure out why he is putting so much of this on me, and why--”

“Hold on!” Sam shot, sitting straighter in his chair, “Sexual abuse? No, that’s… no.”

“Like I said, I do not think your father did assault him sexually, but it feels like it. It all comes from the same place in his mind and has its own feeling. I do not know why.”

“You said,” Sam started, calming down a little and speaking quieter, “You said he was tortured like that in Hell?”

Halfway through sucking in his next breath to speak, Castiel stopped and turned to look Sam in the eyes. His face was blank but his voice was firm, “Your brother was in Hell, Sam, purposely tortured by the best to break so that those in power could continue their plan. Yes, Sam, any awful thing you can imagine, Dean has experienced it much worse.”

Sam’s head fell, his eyes dropping to his knee. It wasn’t easy to forget Dean’s time in Hell, but it was easy to forget their times hadn’t been the same. Sam suffered just as much at the hands of Lucifer, but that time was a door he could shut. And he kept it shut. Dean fought to separate him from Hell by putting up a wall, and Sam fought daily to keep himself separated without that barrier. Dean never got that division. He got a miraculously healed body and a second chance at life with his brother and 40 years of torment he’d never be free from.

“Yeah,” Sam muttered quietly with a sigh, rubbing a hand stressfully over his face, “Of course.”

“Pieces are missing, but I will understand, Sam,” Cas told him emphatically, “I will figure this out, and I will help him, I swear it.”

Sam clapped him on the shoulder and squeezed, not feeling that words were necessary to declaring his solidarity. His hand slid back down to his lap. Scraping teeth over the corner of his bottom lip, he couldn’t… he had to ask.

“Cas, Dean dreams about harming you… sexually?”

Those blue eyes blinked slowly but didn’t look at him.

“Not as far as you know.”

**Author's Note:**

> Shorter chapters in hopes of updating more regularly. If this is poorly written, please tell me. It's mostly done in class when I should be paying attention (oops). It will get worse and more graphic and creative in sexual contact and nightmare. If you have a suggestion, I'm all ears.


End file.
